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Monday, September 17, 2012

September 16, 2012–First Week in the Mission Field

Sept 16, 12

Hey there everyone!

Man the last week has felt like a month! It doesn't feel like just six days ago I was in the MTC. It was sad leaving all of my friends that I had made, but so worth it once I got out here. I just want to get started about telling you about the field. First off, it's the best. Wednesday morning we went to the mission home and had breakfast then went straight to a church where we went over the mission and all the rules for a couple hours.After that we were revealed who are trainers are going to be. My trainer is Elder Cebreros from Las Vegas. He was born in Mexico and has pretty much been fluent in Spanish his whole life growing up. So he is really helping my with my Spanish. The only thing that stinks is he has no idea what grammar is and that's all I learned in the MTC, he just says the words he does because he was taught to, but he is an awesome guy and has been out for 15 months.

So we were assigned to the Provo Parkway area and were white washing the area. That means both me and him are both brand new to the area and know no one. My area touches Provo Lake though and is pretty much straight down from the Y on the mountain. The first day we went straight to work and met the Bishop the ward mission leader and lots of other people. There are two people that have already been put on date for the 29 of September so my first night we went and met with them so that we could get to know them.

The whole time we were getting to know them I was just sitting there like what language are they speaking!!! I learned Spanish in theMTC and it does not sound like that. They speak sooo fast!!! ha-ha anyway they are an amazing family and I have already learned to love them. They are the Dela Rosa Familia and have two sons that got baptist about 2 months ago and now the dad and the daughter who is 13 want to be baptized. They have only been taught the restoration so we still have to teach them the other 3 lessons.We taught them the restoration again though Friday night and I had one of the best experiences of my life. I had the opportunity to tell them the first vision in the lesson and after saying it I just passed and let the spirit work.I asked the daughter how she feel about Josephs experience. She started crying and saying how she knew that it is true, seeing that really made me realize what I am doing out here can change lives and that this is the best thing I could be doing; it was awesome! But just wait it gets better, I bore my testimony to her and the father and my companion also and then the father stands up and bares his testimony to us about what we just said it true!! can you say the word GOLDEN!

I don't know how I was so lucky to have my first investigators be so good. Trust me I know though that that is not how it is always going to be! ha besides this family we have been trying to get more lessons and have set up more appointments with some other people but not as many as we would like. We go out tracking a lot and run into a lot of Catholics, almost every Hispanic that isn't LDS here is catholic. This week we have made it a goal that we want to trying and put another person on date for baptism.

I can tell thoughthat we are going to be teaching a lot of less active members. My companion wastelling me that the English missionaries here have the best mission ever andjust have referrals fall in their laps because the member do a lot ofmissionary work, but the Spanish missionaries have a real mission! Ha-hawhatever that means exactly I'm not sure.

We only have one Spanish ward that we cover even thoughwe have 2 stakes in our area. The whole area is seems to be trailer parks. Wewere tracking Saturday and my companion turns to me and said, I don't even feellike we are in the United States, it feels like were in Mexico! ha-ha It istrue though, we pretty much have all ghetto areas where the people that answerthe door look like Don's cousins!! Well that's only with the white people werun into, but with the Hispanics they are all very nice. I can already tellthat the Hispanic culture is very caring and they are so easy to talk to. Ilove them I really do...

I won't lie I have felt really stressedsince being out and frustrated because my Spanish is horrible and I just wantto be able to speak my mind, but yesterday really helped me a lot. We had ourfirst dinner last night with the De la Rosa familia because the lastmissionaries didn't leave us any meals this week. We had some of the bestMexican food in the world!! it was so good and after we got to spend some timewith the family and I almost just felt like I was at home. It was really niceto just be able to sit there and feel like I had a family we can always go toin this area. I forgot to mention that the mom is also I strong catholic anddoesn't want to hear anything we have but last night we just got to hangoutwith her for the first time and talk with her for a little. I am hoping thatevery time we go that she will warm up and want to hear our message. Fridaynight the father told us that she doesn't want the daughter to get baptizedbecause she is too young, and this girl has already born her testimony to us. Ijust hope that we can change the moms mind on that over time.

The field is awesome and I am so happy tobe out. Me and my companion have a lot of work to do this week to try and meetnew people but I am excited. We have a family home evening lesson tonight withtwo less actives and a non member and we told them to bring friends so I hopetonight goes well.

I love you guys a lot and mom thank you for thepackage. We actually live in a members house and they let us eat whatever foodthey have and use their stuff so I don't really need all those bathroom andkitchen supplies, so I don't need all of that stuff now but maybe I will in thefuture. Anyway I have to go eat lunch, I'll tell you more next letter.